Scuttle flies (Diptera: Phoridae) of the Canary Islands

Abstract

Fifty-four species in 10 genera are listed for the Canary Islands. Megaselia chinyeroensis Disney sp. nov. and Microselia prescherae Disney sp. nov. are described. The hitherto unkown males of Megaselia intermedia (Santos Abreu), Metopina tanjae Disney and Prescher, the putative female of Chonocephalus bentacaisei (Santos Abreu) and the female of Megaselia apozona Schmitz are described. Discovery of errors in the original description of Megaselia striolata Schmitz means that Megaselia canaryae Disney must be synonymized with Schmitz's species.

Identification of Megaselia scalaris (Diptera : Phoridae) based on morphology and mitochondrial 16S rRNA and COI gene sequences

“…Features of male hypopygium are mainly used in morphological identification of Megaselia species (4,25) . Male M. scalaris are closely related with M. longiseta and M. rufipes in the keys of Megaselia species of canary island (11) . A short row of four or five spine-like bristles generally occur beneath the base of hind femur of M. longiseta with different hypopygium structure, which are not observed in M. scalaris.…”

“…A well-accepted key to this genus was provided by Disney, 1994 (18) . The most recent keys to those of Europe, Galápagos Islands and Canary Islands were also provided by Disney (4,6,(10)(11)(12)18) . All available keys were utilized for the identification of Megaselia flies.…”

“…Several reports have been published around the world about occurrence of this human associated fly. M. scalaris is found in North America, Asia, Africa and Europe (6)(7)(8)(9) , even on remote islands, like, Boatswainbird, Canary and Galápagos Islands (10)(11)(12) . But, no record is found from Bangladesh.…”

Structure of scuttle fly communities (Diptera: Phoridae) in two habitats on a Mediterranean mountain

“…Around half of the species belong to the cosmopolitan genus Megaselia Rondani. Phoridae is one of the families of Diptera with the highest diversity of larval life forms, including saprophages, predators, fungivores, parasits and parasitoids (Disney, 1990;Disney et al, 2010).…”

First record of Megaselia rufipes (Meigen, 1804) (Diptera: Phoridae) from Uruguay with notes on biology

“…Otherwise the records tend to be for the southern islands of the Atlantic, such as Nightingale Island (Hänel and Disney 2006) and Gough Island (Jones et al 2003). Further north in the Atlantic it occurs in the Canary Islands and Atlantic islands to the north of these (Disney et al 2010). It is not recorded from the cool climate Falkland Islands (Disney 2009) nor from the warm climate Cape Verde Islands in the Atlantic (Disney 1991) and it is also absent from the warm climate Galápagos Islands (Disney and Sinclair 2008) in the Pacific.…”